


Perso Piccoli Cuccioli di Fuoco - Epilogue Extras

by ncruuk



Series: Station 19 Stories [2]
Category: Station 19 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Feels, No Angst, epilogue extras, established maya/carina, explores Maya's backstory re Olympics, lots of feels, mentions canon character deaths, no Chief Dixon but I kept Emmett, way too much for the actual epilogue chapter which was already huge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28677948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncruuk/pseuds/ncruuk
Summary: Some missing scenes from the Epilogue chapter of my fic Perso Piccoli Cuccioli di Fuoco.Won't make any sense unless you have read that fic.
Relationships: Maya Bishop/Carina DeLuca
Series: Station 19 Stories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100498
Comments: 12
Kudos: 113





	1. At the Station, before Maya or Carina's shifts start

**Author's Note:**

> The original epilogue plan ended up not quite working because it was quite epically long and had rather too much *heavy feels* in a fic that had been supposed to be fluffy and then wasn't entirely fluffy.
> 
> So I edited out the scenes that weren't fitting, wrote an epilogue that sort of worked, and had these scenes left over.
> 
> So... director's cut? Deleted scenes? Up to you what you want to think of them as.
> 
> Either way, I hope you enjoy them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before the Epilogue chapter starts.....warning ahead for discussions about the canon character deaths in the show, plus bits from s02 e01 (which showed the flashbacks to how A shift came together)

“What?”

“Nothing.” Carina shifted so she was now sitting cross-legged on the end of the bunk, her best attempt at a ‘neutral’ expression on her face.

“You’ve seen me button a shirt before,” sighed Maya, returning her attention to the white shirt which she was carefully buttoning, not particularly looking forward to the final button.

“Si, but…” Carina rested her elbows on her knees and brought her hands together, creating a platform for her to rest her chin on, like she was so focused on studying the sight in front of her she didn’t want to waste any concentration on holding her head steady. “...not…” She angled her head slightly as Maya tucked her shirt tails into her waistband and then reached for the belt which was different to her usual one. “...like this.”

“Like what?” Maya was genuinely puzzled by her girlfriend’s reaction.

She was aware of the phenomenon of people being turned on by the uniform but hadn’t ever consciously or deliberately tried it as a pick-up strategy - for one thing there were rules about when and where they could wear their uniforms, and she was too much of a rule follower to try and break them. Plus, unlike some of the guys, despite her earlier strategy of ‘self-care’ hookups, she’d never been one for fireflies, the girls that hankered after firefighters to the point of near fetish. She’d always presumed it was one of those strange straight women things. But now her clear cut oblivion was muddled - thanks to how Carina had worn her regular work shirt in here last shift, she had to admit to herself that she had found the sight of her girlfriend wearing her SFD shirt extremely hot, but then her girlfriend was extremely hot whatever she was or wasn’t wearing...there was nothing special about the shirt being from her uniform, was there?

Carina had never seemed to be particularly fixated on her uniform before - unless you counted stealing her t-shirts to wear around the apartment for some reason Maya couldn’t fathom - they were just navy-blue t-shirts, nothing special in terms of fabric or cut. Apart from that, Carina’s only other consistent response to her uniform had been a need to undo her belt buckle if they were successful at stealing more than ten seconds of uninterrupted kissing time in her office, which Maya had thought a slightly extreme reaction to its presence in between their bodies until the one time Carina hadn’t gone immediately for her belt. Then Carina’s silk blouse had become trapped in it and, when they pulled apart, the silk tore, leaving not only one of Maya’s favourite shirts from Carina’s wardrobe unwearable, but also rather ruined an otherwise wonderful highlight to an otherwise dull shift. But that surely proved Carina’s attitude towards her belt was a practical mitigation to Maya being required to wear a belt with her uniform, rather than her uniform having an arousing effect on Carina?

This though, this was something different. Because even if Maya had been convinced of there being a correlation between her girlfriend’s enthusiasm for her in a given moment and her wearing her uniform, which she wasn’t, surely it would be triggered by her taking her uniform off not putting it on? And aside from the shirt colour, this was hardly all that different from her putting on her blue every-day work shirt, wasn’t it?

“Come un ufficiale…” muttered Carina, her cheeks feeling warm as she made the admission, despite knowing it probably was too cryptic for her girlfriend to get.

“Like official?” queried Maya, fastening the black leather belt that felt stiff and made her feel like her abs had turned to fat whenever had to wear it, not because it was any different in size to her regular one, just that the edges were so rigid and unyielding compared to her regular, everyday woven one.

“Like an officer,” corrected Carina, standing up and going to stand directly in front of her girlfriend who had just picked up the black tie. “Posso?” she asked, taking the tie from Maya’s tight grip and holding it lightly between her fingers, instinctively not touching the fabric with her fingertips. “You don’t like the knotting?”

“Tying,” said Maya automatically, frowning as she tried to fasten the top button of the shirt, not liking the feeling of the fabric’s close fit around her neck. “Not really.” She sighed, her fingers somehow getting in the way of the button as she lined it up with the buttonhole, the button then twisting out of her grasp.

"Tranqulla." Carina lightly pushed Maya's hands aside and a moment later the top button on the stiff collar fabric was fastened, the raised collar almost completely covering her girlfriend's neck. "Ah…" She warned, batting Maya's hands away before she could turn down the collar. "... I want to." Carina looked at the tie she had taken from Maya's nervous hands, turning it around so it was in the right position then lifted it over her girlfriend's head and draped it around her neck, the fine silk tie her Aunt had sent settling smoothly against the shirt. 

"I think there's supposed to be a joke in there…" said Maya, knowing she needed to stand still for Carina to tie the simple knot and therefore having an overwhelming urge to fidget. 

"Si?" 

"Something about if you wanted to tie me up you just needed to ask…” It was a lame line, but that wasn’t what caused Carina to look at Maya with concern - Maya usually managed to make even the lamest of lines sound either teasingly sexy or deliberately silly, but this? This was flat, and not at all like Maya.

“Bella?” Carina finished the knot but let the tie drop against the front of the crisp white cotton, reaching not for the stiff collar that would need turning but Maya’s cheek, which she cupped tenderly. “Dimmelo per favore?”

“It feels weird…wearing this.”

“Because you wear your other one all the time?”

“Yes, no...can you…” Maya gestured to her neck, wanting Carina to finish the tie and sort her collar for her before she continued.

“Si.” Carina quickly tightens the knot so it is resting neatly against the collar button, the knot as symmetric and square against the throat as it’s possible to be considering it is fundamentally a rather lop-sided arrangement that’s always trying to pull itself into a triangle at an angle. Turning down the collar, she runs her hands around the back of Maya’s neck, checking its all turned down smoothly, then decides she’s not going to let go of her girlfriend, but stays with her hands behind Maya’s head, her fingers teasing at the soft strands of hair at her nape, waiting for when Maya’s ready to speak.

“Thanks…". Maya slipped her hands around Carina's waist and closed her eyes, her head falling forwards until it met her girlfriend on what felt like her shoulder but she didn't actually know. "...it feels weird because I'm happy. I don't get to be happy in this uniform…." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "... I'm supposed to… I don't know what I'm supposed to feel in this uniform, I don't remember what I’m meant to feel wearing this." 

"What do you remember?" asked Carina, feeling cross for herself for not thinking about what memories might be associated with the rarely worn outfit.

“Sadness…” Maya walked them over to the bunk and sat down on its edge, taking Carina’s hand in hers as she sat down next to her. “...I don’t want to hear the bells.” She stopped again, her thumb tracing over the knuckles of Carina’s hand, feeling the edges of the bone, being aware of their strength and fragility, similar and yet so different to Maya’s own.

“The service…” Carina remembered standing on the ward with Bailey, both taking a moment in the otherwise hectically busy hospital, standing there in their masks and visors, watching Andy try and memorialise her father, where there was no body, no funeral, no ceremony, only sadness. She hadn’t really known what to expect, had been planning on watching it by herself but Bailey had insisted that they watch it together, and while she’d felt awkward at first, she was glad she had. 

Because that was when it had hit her, that was when it truly became real, the risk that came with loving a firefighter...she’d managed to be detached through the speeches, dispassionate sadness for the man who had died, who she’d never really known mixed with gut wrenching sorrow for the impact his death was having on Maya and her friends, but she’d managed to contain that mixture until the bells. Bells she never wanted to hear again...bells she could only imagine must haunt her Maya. “...for Andy’s father…”

“Not just him.”

Carina thought for a moment, thinking back to the very start of their relationship, the first time.

“Vasquez?” She didn’t remember there being a funeral, didn’t remember the Station being dressed with black drapes, didn’t remember there being this uniform. But then, she had to remind herself that she and Maya had only just met.

“Yeah.” Maya turned Carina’s hand over and started tracing the lines on her palm. “His wife didn’t want anything, refused all the ceremonial, refused everything the Department offered...understandable really...but then, right at the last minute, on the morning... his mother rang me...I didn’t even know she had the number, didn’t remember ever meeting her. And there she was, on the phone, I was standing at the desk still in my bunker gear, covered in smoke from the scene we’d just got back from...all I could think about as I snatched up the phone was there better be some hot water left for me...and it was Rigo’s mom. Talking, crying, apologising….his Mom apologising to me? She said she had a feeling they would regret letting their hate for us at his death dictate how they remembered and celebrated his life.”

Carina shuffled a little closer to Maya, switching her right hand for her left one, content to let Maya continue turning her hand about this way and that, lost in the patterns she was finding to make with her fingertip. With her right hand free, she could wrap her arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders and hold on to her with everything she had, not knowing where this story was going.

“What could I do? There was only a couple of hours, I’d just worked a double, with C then A...but B Shift, Rigo’s shift, were coming on, so I ordered A Shift to stay on shift for a few more hours and took B Shift to the church...No engine, no flags, just us in this uniform, badges shrouded. At the last minute I asked Finch I think to bring the bell... We didn’t know what we were going to do, didn’t know if we were welcome but we went.” 

Maya lapsed into silence, lost in the memory as the firefighters that had given her the cold shoulder from the moment she made Captain, a cold shoulder that had turned positively icy when Rigo had died, that had managed to find a way of freezing her out just enough that they stayed ‘professional’ while making it impossible for her to do her job...those same firefighters replied to her early morning texts thanking her for the option to accompany her to the funeral, agreeing to put on this uniform and go honour a fallen firefighter, their lost member of their family. It was the moment they started not being childish….and the moment she could start to stop treating them like children.

“Was his mama right?” asked Carina eventually, when it was clear Maya had drifted to a stop and become stuck in her memory.

“I think so, I hope so...we stood around outside the church not sure what to do and suddenly he was there, with the flowers and the polished wood and one of the B Shift guys made a comment about how Rigo always managed to look sharp but only if someone else fixed him up and they heard…” Maya took a shuddering breath, her eyes focussed on the patterns she was drawing on Carina’s palm. “...his Mom and Eva heard and I wanted to leave, to take us away from this space we didn’t fit in, weren’t invited to, wanted to hide in shame at the damage we’d caused, that I’d caused…”

“Bella…” whispered Carina instinctively, pressing a kiss against the side of Maya’s head, not wanting to interrupt her but unable to let the moment pass without some acknowledgment of the pain in that moment, both then and now.

“And his Mom laughed. She laughed and agreed and was suddenly telling Eva a story she’d never heard about how on his wedding day his Mom had taken one look at him when he thought he was ready to leave for the ceremony and sent him back upstairs to start again. And then it was time...time for the service and we were about to go in, to find a corner at the back when Eva and his Mom...they asked if we...if there were enough of us to…” Maya took a deep shuddering breath. “Suddenly we, they were carrying him, B Shift... who’d otherwise be at station expecting to spend the morning doing chores and drills and waiting for the alarm, me who’d been told not to explicitly that Fire Department could not attend, and especially not 19...I’d been awake for days and I was now counting steps and giving literal marching orders...celebrating him, honouring him, burying him...and ringing the bell…”

“There are no bells today bella,” said Carina quietly, kissing Maya’s temple again and squeezing her tight to her side, feeling the patterns stopping as Maya took hold of her hand. “I promise, today there are no bells.”

“I know…”

Carina felt Maya lift and square her shoulders, trying to gather herself.

“When did you first wear it?”

“Hmm?”

“This uniform, when did you first wear it?”

“Oh, umm…” 

Maya hadn’t let go of Carina’s hand, or shaken herself free of the hug, but she was starting to try and repack the memories of the funerals, Ripley’s too, but also Andy’s medal ceremony...that had not been a happy memory for Maya - sure, she was delighted for her best friend, genuinely pleased for her, but listening to the citation, the explanation of everything that had already happened such that Andy had to do what she did? That ate away at Maya’s insides as she listened, reliving the panic and fear she felt in the moments when she thought she had lost her best friend, when she knew that Andy had swapped onto Aid Car so she could...she couldn’t even remember now why they’d swapped.

“...the Academy, yeah…” She grinned, in spite of how heavy her face felt, feeling the dried tears making her skin feel stiff, squeezing Carina’s hand as she laughed. “...graduation from the Academy. We were such...dorks…”

“We? You and...Andy?”

“Yeah...we felt in this weird place, somewhere between little kids playing dress up in their Dad’s clothes and…” Maya sat up straighter, gently dislodging Carina’s arm from her shoulders with an unconscious shimmy, though she kept hold of her hand, her thumb starting to stroke the skin that somehow, amazingly was always so soft and smooth despite how often Carina was having to scrub them with harsh soaps and detergents. “...standing like we were ten feet tall, finally firefighters.” She shook her head, still smirking at the memory. “It was crazy really, these folding metal chairs lined up in rows on this lawn, I mean, don’t get me wrong, the view was amazing…” She gave Carina’s hand a final squeeze, a thought occurring to her prompting her to stand up and go to the desk. Carina thought she was going to pick up the photo frame, that had a picture of Maya, Andy and Vic all caught up in a big, laughter filled hug, but instead Maya opened the top drawer and pulled out a couple of photographs. “...we were lucky, it was sunny…” She sat down again, passed Carina the first photograph, clearly the ‘official’ shot taken as she shook the hand of the Chief, her silver badge attached to her jacket for the first time. “...I mean, who plans for an outdoor ceremony in Seattle?”

“Are you not waterproof?” teased Carina, looking at the photo with interest, noting the similarities and differences between the Maya captured in the image and the one she knew and loved.

“Not in this uniform…” Maya’s nose twitched in distaste. “...we smell like wet sheep when it rains.” She passed another photo, more of a snapshot this time, to her girlfriend. “Andy’s Dad took that one of us.”

“She looks…” Carina wasn’t quite sure what was ‘off’ about the photo, but there was something not sitting right with her about how Andy was smiling at the camera.

“...pissed while smiling? Yeah, she was mad with her Dad.”

“Cosa?”

“I only found out a few months back, the book of condolence for him…” 

Maya looked at the third photo, Captain Herrera stood with his arms around both her and Andy, all three of them laughing at something, what she couldn’t remember. “...it was from a police officer from some random police station, not our district...she wrote she’d only met the Captain once, he’d turned up to bail out some kid and was a bit short with her about how slow the paperwork was going, because he was in a rush. She wrote she remembered being a bit cool with him, because he was there in full dress uniform which she felt was a bit much for bailing out a kid that wasn’t even his, thinking he was another one pulling rank and favours.” Maya sniffed, not wanting to get tears or worse on the photo. “The following day, she wrote about how she got a note from him, a proper note, written in a card with a picture of the Engine and Ladder on it, which was how she knew which Station to come to years later….” Maya handed the photo over to Carina, her eyes watering despite her smile as her memories of the first time she wore her dress uniform were blended with the memories of the most recent time. “...he apologised for his shortness, explained the kid needing bailing was his daughter’s best friend, and he was in his uniform not for the kid like she’d thought, but because he was supposed to be at his daughter’s graduation from the Fire Academy…”

“Bella…” Carina wrapped her arm back around her girlfriend, pulling her close, mentally cursing that she was wearing just enough of a hint of make-up that she needed to worry about marking Maya’s white shirt.

“She’d kept the card all these years, and remembered him, remembered the kid too when he turned into a fine policeman.”

“Si?” Carina wracked her brain, trying to remember if she knew this fine policeman that clearly mattered a lot to Andy, and probably therefore Maya too...and then she remembered. She did know him - he’d been the policeman with the kind eyes and the soft voice that had been accompanying the young woman who’d been assaulted that became Carina’s patient in the Pit... “He was a good young man.” 

“You knew Ryan?” Maya looked at Carina in amazed surprise.

“No. Si…” Carina bit her lip and studied Maya’s eyes carefully, trying to read in them if she was in the right frame of mind to hear her story. “...I had a patient, she needed emergency surgery for her injuries…” Carina didn’t need to say what had caused her ‘injuries’, it was the darkest part of her job as an OB/GYN, but the violence of sexual assault didn’t always mean broken bones and external cuts. “...but before the surgery, the police, they needed her statement, the evidence. The officer, I didn’t know his name, he was so good with her, it was such a difficult case I wanted to refuse to let him near her, but he was…” She paused, deciding she didn’t need to try and explain his kindness and compassion, knowing her girlfriend had to already know that. “I did not recognise him from the photos of him with you as friends, he seemed familiar, but I did not know from where. Last shift, there was one picture I saw when I was upstairs, with him in his everyday uniform and I recognised him...” Carina put her finger to Maya’s lips when she saw her start to ask a question. “It does not matter now, it was when I was new to seeing patients at Grey-Sloan, a long time before I knew you, but I remember him as being so kind.” She shrugged. “I did not plan to tell Andy, or you, it felt...like I was trying... to take the storm.”

Maya’s face twitched.

“...take over the storm?”

Another twitch.

“...seize the storm?”

“Oh…” Maya realised what Carina had been trying to say and grinned in spite of the seriousness of their discussion. “...steal our thunder?”

“Si. I did not want to appear like I was trying to steal your thunder.” She caught a couple of stray tears that had escaped Maya’s eye with her thumb. “So Andy was angry at her papa for not turning up soon enough? At your graduation?”

“He was supposed to pin on her badge, what with her being a _legacy..._ but she was also so determined to be her own person all through the Academy. She couldn’t decide if she was mad he wasn’t there to pin her badge on or relieved she was getting the Chief like the rest of us.” 

Maya knew Carina and Andy had compared notes one night over two bottles of very good Italian red wine about what it was like following in a father’s footsteps. Maya had left them to it after the second glass, pottering about the apartment doing the washing up and tidying, partly to avoid having her own father in her thoughts, but mostly so the two women she loved, one platonically in a ‘I’d give you my kidney’ type way, the other so completely she’d already surrendered her heart to her, had an opportunity to get to know each other a little better.

“That smile is her face unable to decide if she was happy or mad with him.” Maya took it back from Carina and looked at it a final time before standing up again. “I think she went with I’m mad at you for missing the ceremony but I’m glad you’re here.”

“Does she know?”

“Know what?” asked Maya as she put the photos away and blew her nose.

“Know why he missed most of your graduation?”

“No.” Maya looked over her shoulder at Carina. “I told Robert, so he knows if she ever revisits it, graduation I mean…by the time I knew, Ryan was...Ryan was gone.” Maya looked at her hair in the mirror, checking that she’d managed to work her hair into the regulation bun properly. After the very short styled bob she’d ended up with after her ponytail removal was tidied up, her hair was longer again, but she was keeping it at the short end of long - she’d refused to go as short as she’d need to in order to not need to tie up her hair when she was working, but had grown it out just enough to be easily swept back and secured in a stumpy ponytail or, as now, into a braid that tucked in on itself to then tuck under the uniform cap. “...but I doubt it, I mean, I hadn’t thought about it until you asked.”

“Scusa…”

“What? No!” Maya spun round and was suddenly crouching in front of Carina. “Nothing to be sorry for...my fault for wandering off topic.” Maya shuffled forwards in her crouch so she could angle her head forwards, bracing herself against the edge of the mattress with her arms, and delicately teased her girlfriend’s lips, that were still frozen mid apology with the tip of her tongue. “We were such dorks then…” she whispered, continuing to coax stunned lips back to life with her teasing, deep down knowing she couldn’t succumb to the temptation that was ever present to just lose herself in kissing Carina.

“Si?”

“Mmm…” Maya, objective reached, brushed her lips over Carina’s, managing to pull back when she felt her girlfriend’s tongue try to sneak through into her mouth. “...yes.” Maya leaned back, laughing when she saw Carina pouting. “You were the one who said no kissing once I was wearing the white shirt…”

“Si but…” Carina stuck out her tongue in silly retaliation. “How were you dorks?”

“Oh, we couldn’t tie our ties…” Maya stood up again, smoothing the tie down her front. “...thank you, this is way nicer than the tie I had back then.”

“You have already thanked Zia Therese many times, and it was her not me,” said Carina, returning to her crossed-leg sitting on the bed, in a definitely keeping her hands and lips to herself position, starting to slightly regret deciding she’d detour to the station to say hi to Maya on her way to start her shift so she could have her first sight of Maya in this uniform in private and not on the ward at the hospital.

“Yes, but she’s your Aunt Therese, I’d have never thought to get one like this…” Maya stopped admiring her tie and returned to her original point before they ran out of time. “...the standard issue ones creased as you tied them, which was fine if you could tie it right, but Andy and me? No clue, and it wasn’t like we’d practiced. But we did it.”

“You looked good in the photographs.”

“Yeah, but that was about the only bit not creased...fortunately by the time we took our jackets off everyone was taking their ties off too, so no one saw what the rest of the tie looked like.” Maya opened the wardrobe door, and took out the jacket.

“What is the mark? On the sleeve?” asked Carina, knowing the bright blue braid in the photographs had been replaced with silver, stiffer braid when Maya became a Lieutenant, then been doubled to two lines on her sleeves when she made Captain to match her collar marks on her other shirt, but the single mark on the sleeve above the rings was new for Carina.

“It’s a Service Cross.” Maya put the jacket on but didn’t button it, instead returning to stand in front of Carina so she could see the extra detail on her right sleeve, above her Captain’s rings. “We have to put one on for every five years of service.” She did some quick maths. “Miller and Gibson must be about due their next ones…” She saw Carina’s eyebrow raise in wordless question. “They were two years ahead of Andy and me at the Academy, Vic was two years behind us and she’s got to add her first one about now I guess.”

“You stitched this?”

“Yes.” Maya shifted her shoulders, getting the jacket to settle right before, starting to fasten the double-breasted jacket. “The braid I had done by the store, but there wasn’t time when I needed that one.” She switched her hands round, ready to fasten the ‘show’ buttons, only for Carina to pat her hands away and take over. “I’d just got it back from the store after I’d made Lieutenant when Chief Ripley…” Maya took a breath, certain she could feel the warmth of her girlfriend’s fingers on her skin as she smoothed down the front of the jacket, despite knowing it was impossible. “...that taught me two things: always keep your uniform current, and learn how to sew the crosses on in the right place.” She adjusted her shirt cuffs so they were showing just the right amount of white beyond the end of her jacket sleeves. “So many were apparently panicking because of missing crosses and stuff, the backlog at the store was crazy.” Then again, for the Chief, practically every firefighter in the Department had needed their dress uniform at some point. 

“Very nice.” She ran her hands over the lapels and front of Maya’s jacket, appreciating the smoothness of the fabric which was fitting her girlfriend’s body very...closely. “It is tailored?”

“I guess.” Maya had to turn around anyway to pick up her Captain’s badge, which she needed to pin to the front of her jacket, though she’d at least remembered to pin her name badge (her proper one, that said Capt. ahead of the Bishop - it was a replacement, the first one breaking as she was trying to put it on the day of the memorial and she’d felt off, wearing the wrong one all afternoon, to add to everything else she was feeling) onto the jacket before she put it on this time. “We’re allowed two…” She gestured to the darts in the back of the jacket that were giving it the contour to follow her hips and back, enabling her to actually start with a jacket that was big enough for her breasts but didn’t end up hanging over her hips like a tent. “...it’s the usual problem, everything’s cut for men.”

“Si, but…” Carina fell silent, just admiring her girlfriend in this very smart, if sometimes sad, uniform.

“How is it…” began Maya, badge pinned in place and, not being shrouded with the black band across the centre, making the uniform look and feel different to those other times that dominated her memories, helping her head to further clear. “...that when I’m wearing uniform you seem to be unable to not look at my butt, yet when I get out of bed naked you go back to sleep?”

“It is not sleep…” Carina stood up and carefully wrapped her hand around the back of Maya’s neck, managing to just avoid catching her tucked in braid with her fingers and undoing it. “...è sovrastimolazione…”

“What happened…” said Maya, jerking her head backwards while wrapping her hands around her girlfriend’s hips, keeping her close. “...to no kissing because of the white shirt?”

“Zitto e baciami Capitano…”

That was an order this Captain was delighted to comply with, whether in or out of uniform.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> è sovrastimolazione - [It's not sleep,] it's overstimulation  
> Zitto e baciami Capitano - shut up and kiss me Captain


	2. At the Station - Carina's gone to her shift, Maya and Andy yet to start theirs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still before the epilogue chapter starts...

“Is that…” 

Maya froze, not sure what it was that Andy had spotted, mentally wondering if Carina had, despite her assurances and Maya’s own inspection in the mirror, managed to mark her uniform.

“...a new tie?”

“Hmm?” Maya let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding and felt the fabric. “Oh, yeah. Carina’s Aunt married a tailor and has opinions…”

“...wait, is that the one that wants to make you a suit?”

“Yeah, but it’s…” Maya shook her head, knowing Andy understood how ‘much’ Maya found Carina’s family on her mother’s side, who like Andy’s, had somehow managed to be effectively and with an almost surgical precision, been removed from Carina’s life after her Mother moved to America with her brother. Despite remaining in Italy, they’d been kept fully informed about Andrew DeLuca’s life, whereas his sister had been completely unmentioned. It was only once Carina moved to the US, and was around one day when Zia Therese had rung her brother, that the gulf was tentatively closed. “...so Andrew suggested we started small.” Maya walked around behind her desk, checking she hadn’t overlooked anything. “Uniform regs allow silk ties, so we started small.”

“Nice...your knots have improved...”

“Same way yours have I’m betting?” Maya nodded at Andy’s own uniform. “Robert’s effort?”

“Yeah. This the first time Carina seen it?”

“Mmm…” Maya looked at her watch and realised it was time for her to find Gibson to take him through what she had planned for the shift, though it also helped that she’d not have time for Andy to try and pry more out of her, wanting to keep a lid on _that_ particular memory for the duration of the shift, since otherwise it would probably be torture. “Let me guess, Robert’s confused?”

“He told you?” Andy stood in front of the office door, not prepared to let Maya out of her office until she’d explained how she’d known. “Wait, when did you see him?” He’d only arrived at the station in the last few minutes, only needing to pull on his regular blue uniform, and Andy was fairly certain there was no way his path could have crossed with Maya’s.

“I haven’t.” Maya finally found what she was looking for, having sensibly put her hat on top of the piece of paper she wanted to go through with Gibson so he felt like he was a part of the shift plan before they had line up. “Instinct.”

“How…” Andy looked at Maya through narrowing eyes, trying to work out how her best friend knew that her husband had been extremely confused when he’d come back from the store just in time to see his wife almost ready in her dress uniform, having never previously considered the conservatively cut, masculine-style outfit to be ever be sexy on someone. “...wait, Carina was wearing your shirts last shift.”

“We’re going to be late.”

“Ha!” Andy did a little ‘happy dance’ movement Maya hadn’t seen her do since before Ryan… “Pay up!” She looked at Maya, her hand out, not that either of them could remember what the stake was, the silly bet over who would be the first to find the SFD uniform ‘hot’ something Maya had come up with to try and distract Andy from worrying about where her father was. “What?”

“Nothing.” She’d forgotten about the bet when the whole Andy-Jack situation had been a thing, though she knew that the uniform had played no part in either of their entanglements with the Lieutenant. And she wasn’t stupid enough to bring up anything that meant she heard more than she already knew about the Sullivan’s sex life, thanks to Amelia’s Abstinence Approach to Addition Management.

“Maya....”

“It just feels weird, about to have something happy to associate with this…” Maya gestured to her jacket. “Carina asked me when I first wore it…”

“Graduation,” remembered Andy, smiling. “You were so obsessed with the weather forecast.”

“It was an outdoor ceremony...we’re Seattle Fire Department, not LA!”

“Did you…” Andy had started to ask her question before she caught herself, wondering if it was a bad idea.

“Did I what?” Maya spun her hat in her hands, the silver double ring on her sleeve catching in the light, which might have once upon a time made Andy mad, but now made her so proud of her best friend.

“Did they really say they couldn’t make it? I never…”

“My parents? I thought you’d worked it out.” She saw Andy’s perplexed look. “I never invited them to Graduation.” Maya put her cap under her arm like they were supposed to, then put her cell phone in her pocket. “It felt easier to tell you they couldn’t make it than explain…” Maya bit her lip, wondering why she’d never felt able to tell Andy this before, wondering why it was even worth remembering now, but knowing her best friend wasn’t asking out of pity, out of a genuine desire to know. “...than explain my father never cared beyond the race result. I’d passed the exams, been assigned to a station, he couldn’t understand why wasn’t I already there, working and studying for the Lieutenant exams.”

“Did they see you get that?” asked Andy, looking past Maya to her Gold Medal.

“Cross the line and be confirmed as Olympic Champion? Yes. The medal? No.” Maya put the rest of the things she usually had in her regular uniform pockets in her pockets now, the last thing she picked up was the key to the Station SUV, which they had for running errands and so on. “If he’d had his way, I’d have been on a training run.” She laughed, seeing Andy’s mouth drop open. “The medal ceremony isn’t immediately after the race, it’s like a session or two later, after you’ve done the drugs tests and stuff.” That was another thing, now she thought about it, that she definitely didn’t miss about competing - the peeing in a cup in front of a random stranger when you were massively dehydrated, exhausted and wanting to be anywhere except some grim bathroom stall, trying to pee and with an audience to boot. “So it was the day after, in the afternoon.” She tossed the car key to Andy, who for once actually caught it, causing her to grin. “I only managed to stay in the Olympic Village through to the Closing Ceremony because I was nominated by the team and the Chef de Mission was someone my father couldn’t intimidate.”

“Nominated?” Andy opened the office door, wondering how it was she knew so much and yet so little about Maya. “Nominated for what?”

“Flag carrier.” Maya remembered at the last second to pick up the shift orders she’d written out, then joined Andy heading up the stairs to the Beanery, hoping Probie was properly dressed. “Each sports group nominated a couple of people to make a long list that the Chef de Mission turned into a short list for us all to vote on...I was nowhere near that short list.” Maya paused, one foot on the bottom step, suddenly realising something.

“What?”

“I’m not sure I was nominated actually, now I think about it.” She set off up the stairs, slowly, thinking through this latest puzzle her memory was throwing up for her.

“Then why…wait, you think the Cook guy told you that to get your Dad to back off?”

“Chef de Mission - Head of the USA Team, but everything’s in French as well as English at the Olympics,” said Maya, automatically correcting Andy’s ‘cook guy’ reference. “...which was mad since we were Team USA and the Games were in London. And maybe?” Maya shrugged as she got to the top of the stairs, a coy smile forming. “It doesn’t matter now, and it was an amazing night.”

“I bet…” Andy was glad Maya was smiling again, as she’d said, this was supposed to be a happy occasion, and it would be, but it was hard to not associate this uniform with sadness, Andy completely got that. “...wait, is that when Self-Care Wednesdays started?”

“It wasn’t a Wednesday.” Maya looked around and groaned, not seeing Emmett ready. “PROBIE?” She looked imploringly at Andy.

“Nuh uh, you’re the Captain.” She saw the bags of bears on the Beanery table and spotted her ‘out’. “I’ll go give these guys their caps...I’ll load your kit too.”

“Chicken,” said Maya, bracing herself for god knows what in the locker room that was delaying Probie being ready in his dress uniform, but she hoped it was an inability to knot his tie or a broken name badge rather than something involving naked Montgomery.

“You’re welcome Captain.”


	3. Between the Lobby Scene and Carina giving Maya the address/inviting her to wait in her office

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the twins get their bears, Maya gets recognised and Luca Bishop's name is explained....

“Knock knock, can we come in?”

“Oh, hi Dr Altman.” Naomi tried to conceal the wince as she attempted to reposition herself to be sat a little more upright in the bed, prompting the surgeon to quickly move over to help her, not wanting her to pull on her incision. “Thanks. Oh, hi…”

“You remember Dr DeLuca I think?” said Teddy, continuing the introductions, Carina having caught them up a moment ago just as they were making sure they had two bears, wearing two Station 19 caps and three firefighters all properly turned out.

“Hi Naomi,” said Carina, knowing that it wasn’t as strange a question as it sounded from Teddy, with most mothers completely forgetting who was in the room with them the moment they saw their baby for the first time.

“Yeah, hi…” She looked a little sheepish, at the sudden audience, but relaxed a bit when she saw a familiar face. “Hi Emmett.”

“This is…” began Teddy, seeing Maya and Andy following Emmett into the room, Andy holding the two bears - they’d left the bag and Teddy’s bear at the nurses’ station.

“No way!”

“Scusa?” Carina rushed to the suddenly very animated Naomi’s side, rather concerned that at the rate she was moving around in the bed, she was going to damage her incision, not to mention what was happening with her heart rate. “You must stay calm…”

“Sam…” Naomi was trying to twist around to look at her brother, who had been lightly napping, the beds pushed close enough together that there was just enough space between them for the two little babies, in their little cribs, to be sleeping. “SAM!”

“Wha…” He blinked a little woozily, then woke up properly. “Oh, hi Dr Altman...Dr DeLuca…” He blinked again, seeing the three firefighters hovering just beyond the end of his sister’s bed. “...Hey man…” He half waved at Emmett, who he recognised from the fire station, but couldn’t remember the name of. “Wait, you look kinda familiar…” he added, squinting in Maya and Andy’s direction. Maya, knowing that she’d not spoken to either of the siblings at the station, stepped to the side, presuming he meant Andy, who had treated him a bit. “...no way…”

“I know!” Naomi started twisting again, causing a very confused Carina to try to encourage her to calm down again. “This is so cool… but oh my god, you saw, I mean...”

“I’m sorry, what’s cool?” asked Teddy, looking to Andy and Emmett, wondering what was going on, though finding Maya’s nervousness interesting.

“You were…” Naomi was so animated that Carina had to reach for the oxygen mask, worrying that her levels were dropping, starting to wonder also if Sam’s heart issue might be genetic and also present in Naomi, based on how her heart rate was all over the place suddenly.

“...on my sister’s bedroom wall.”

“I do not care if there were pink unicorns on your bedroom ceilings, you must calm down…” insisted Carina firmly, glaring at Naomi, the rarely seen fierce side of the amiable Italian doing its job, with Naomi obediently leaning back into the pillows and not fighting the oxygen mask. Sam also, to his credit, leaned back into his pillows and allowed Teddy to check him over without putting up too much resistance.

Once both doctors were happy their patients were in a calmer state, they relaxed their stances and moved away from the beds, giving the siblings the space to continue their very strange conversation. However, it was clear that Carina’s telling off had been sufficiently effective it had stymied all conversation.

“Rainbow.”

“Hmm?”

“Rainbow. It’s usually rainbow unicorns, or pink elephants,” said Maya, who’d been somewhat oblivious to the drama that everyone else had been witness to, having retreated into her own thoughts, her eyes tracking Carina as she focused on not letting the panic overwhelm her at this new development.

“Grazie, pink elephants then.”

“Rainbow unicorns might be better,” said Maya quietly, studying Naomi’s reaction to her in the same way she’d study a fire, trying to work out what the variables were, what effects when with which cause.

“What did you mean, she was on your bedroom wall?” asked Andy, looking between Naomi and Maya. “You two know each other?”

“I don’t think we’ve met before...have we?” asked Maya, embarrassed that she was having to admit she’d forgotten if they had.

“We’ve never met,” confirmed Naomi, mumbling through the oxygen mask, which prompted Carina to relent and, pulling on some gloves, switch the full face mask for the nasal tubes, still not happy with how her patient’s heart rate was doing crazy things. “But you’ve kinda chased me.”

“I, umm…” Maya put her hat down on the table thing on wheels that could be pushed up close to the patient, but was currently down at the bottom of Naomi’s bed, covering her feet, then put her hands in her pockets to stop anyone seeing they were shaking. “...guess you ran track?” asked Maya, deciding that yes/no questions would probably be less likely to get them on the wrong side of her girlfriend in Doctor mode.

Naomi opened her mouth to speak, only for Carina’s fierce look to make her change her mind and her jaws snap shut, so she instead answered with a small nod and took some steadying breaths.

“Let me guess…” Maya did some quick arithmetic, seeing the significance of the ‘kinda chased me’ comment. “...Junior National Trials in 2009 or 10?”

Another nod. She’d been at both.

“She had a posters of you…” volunteered Sam, his breathing back under control and, unlike his sister, not having a rapid heartbeat from meeting his teenage crush in person. “...you were who she said she wanted to be in her yearbook question.” If he wasn’t still very conscious how painful laughing was, he’d find the slack-jawed expressions on the faces of the other firefighters and the doctors funny. “Wait, you did know she won Olympic Gold in like a national record in London right?”

“You have posters?”

“Team USA had posters…” said Maya, trying to distract her girlfriend from what, obviously, was her next logical question.

“Wow…” Andy, being Andy, had exercised Lieutenant’s privilege and passed the bears to Emmett and got her phone out and did an image search on the internet, aware of Teddy drifting behind her to see. “...how did I not think to google you before this?” She scrolled down, her eyes widening, prompting Sam to almost laugh again.

“I’m guessing you’ve seen the Sports Illustrated photos then?” Teddy had to laugh at how bright red both Naomi and Maya now were. “They were Nome’s favourite.”

“How did we not know this?” asked Andy, passing her phone to Emmett. “Why did we not know this?”

“You do remember the Academy? And have you met Gibson?” asked Maya, mortified. “I didn’t say anything because I assumed everyone would have already found them and...I was waiting each day to find my locker covered in them or something.”

“Ah, yeah.” Andy winced at the memory of some of the crap the other recruits threw at Maya, crap that Andy now realised was even meaner than the recruits could possibly know, yet Maya had just kept her mouth closed and ultimately bested all of them. 

“I didn’t really have a choice, it was always either team press or sponsor demands...the magazine was a gold medal winners edition…” As embarrassing as the pictures were for her, being so far removed from her comfort zone, years later Maya was actually able to look back on the two days they were taken on with a bit of fondness - still not a Wednesday, but definitely ‘self-care’.

“How has this never happened before?” asked Andy, looking at Maya in amazement, but also realising how uncomfortable her friend was looking, so decided to switch places with Carina, who had clearly decided Naomi’s heart rate was Maya-related (she’d be a hypocrite to not acknowledge the veracity of that medical condition) not medical, passing her phone to the OB as she passed her. “And hi guys, I’m Lieutenant Herrera, Andy, you might remember me arriving after the really tall other Lieutenant, Tess?” The two siblings nodded, so she continued with the story of their Christmas morning in Station 19. “Not sure how much you know about what happened, did Dr Altman catch you up?”

“No, I was there for only a small part of it, thought I’d leave it for you guys...” explained Teddy, seeing what Andy was trying to do, which was shift the spotlight away from ‘Olympic Maya’ for a few moments, and game to try and help.

“Right, so you walked into Station 19 and met Firefighter Dixon there…” Emmett waved. “...as he was on watch duty, meaning he was at the Station. Maya’s the Captain of the Station and we have a fire engine, a ladder truck and an aid car, but that night when you arrived we were all out at a call already.”

“Captain? Wow…” It was Sam’s turn to be impressed and caught up with a bit of hero worship, adding, “...that was my dream as a kid.”

“It still can be…” said his sister quietly, the oxygen helping her now she’d also got over the shock of her teenage crush suddenly appearing at the foot of her bed.

“You didn’t know?” Andy looked at Emmett, her turn to be confused. “But we thought, when Luca’s middle name…”

“The shirt,” said Carina, the pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place for her. “I introduced myself as Dr DeLuca but Naomi focused on the shirt saying ‘Bishop’ and my having no shoes on.” Carina smiled kindly, all fierceness gone from her expression now she understood Naomi’s outburst, glad she wasn’t connected to a heart monitor when she saw those pictures of her girlfriend. “I kept hearing you saying Bishop, at first I thought you were just reading the shirt, but you called me Dr DeLuca and…” She shrugged and folded her arms across her front, glad to have Maya’s comforting presence right next to her. “...I then was a little busy.”

“That was my fault,” said Sam, adding his bit into the story. “...the constantly saying Bishop. The only thing I could remember from the books and stuff I’d read was that a mantra could help. We’d not got one yet, and when Naomi started hyperventilating I tried to think of something to start saying to her to help her calm down a bit, but my mind was blank...and then I saw the name on the shirt and just said it as a word.” He looked at his sister and grinned. “Now I know why it was a word you jumped on…” he teased. “But that’s not why Nome picked it as a middle name.”

“Oh?” Andy had pocketed her phone now Carina had given it back to her, knowing she was probably going to have to carry the bulk of the conversation: Maya and small talk never really mixing at the best of times, but this extra surprise case of hero worship was going to make it even worse for her best friend. “Wait, don’t tell me, your great-uncle was a priest?” she joked, trying to shift their focus back to her from Maya.

“I didn’t have any clue about names…” began Naomi quietly, reaching slightly towards her son, Carina’s glare from earlier inhibiting her movements a bit, prompting the OB to move forwards and, with the same care and ease that the firefighters all recognised from how she’d been handling the puppies at the station, scooped up the sleeping baby and placed him on his mother’s chest. “...we don’t have family naming traditions and Luca just…” She ran a finger carefully over his cheek, not wanting to disturb his sleep. “...made sense after everything you did for him Doctor.”

“Grazie.” Carina actually hated having babies named after her, thinking it was a decision made by the parents in the exhausted heat of the moment, and she usually tried to avoid it as much as possible, but this time the shrug of ‘I was just doing my job’ and quiet thank you were genuine - there was something a bit different and special about these two.

“You being there was like a Christmas miracle I guess,” continued Naomi, actually now telling the story of his name to her son, the firefighters and doctors being the forgotten audience. “I remember bits and pieces, like your uncle wanting to know what sort of doctor she was while all I could wonder is why she had no shoes on...turns out, she was the perfect doctor for us. Which is how you got your first name Luca, but your second name..see...hello, yes, Luca’s you little guy…” He’d opened his eyes briefly at the sound of her voice, then, after moving his mouth about a couple of times, decided sleeping was the best thing and his eyes slid shut again. “... and this amazing doctor? She was only there, in that fire station, because she’d been visiting her partner, who was someone called ‘Bishop’. So even before I knew who ‘Bishop’ was, I was thinking of them as another Christmas miracle, because without them, no Dr DeLuca….but it turns out, little guy, that ‘Bishop’ is extra special, but that’s a story for when you’re a bit older I think…Luca Bishop Climpson.”

As she finished her story for her son, Teddy, who had to go to her surgery now, slipped from the room but not before giving Maya’s back a quick pat of encouragement and reassurance as she passed her, guessing this was probably quite a lot to take in for the former Olympian.

“You don’t mind do you?” asked Naomi suddenly, looking up at Carina and Maya, wondering if she’d caused offence.

“No, it’s an honour,” said Maya quietly, reaching out towards Emmett for him to pass her a bear. “Umm, I’m not sure if anyone’s told you, but we have a bit of a tradition in the Fire Department…” She saw both the older, adult Climpson siblings shake their heads, looking a bit confused as they caught sight of the bear for the first time. 

“A Fire Station is like a family, made up of the firefighters at its heart, but surrounded by their loved ones. As firefighters, we wear these caps…” She turned the bear around so they could see the back of it, ”...which have our Station number on the back, like this.” She turned the bear around so they could see the stitching on the front of the cap. “When we welcome someone who isn’t a firefighter into the Station family, we give them one of our caps. Otherwise, if a non-firefighter gets given a Fire Department cap, while it looks the same on the front, it doesn’t have a station number on the back.”

She cleared her throat, feeling a bit self-conscious, but knowing this was why they were here, that this was as important a part of being Captain as running drills and ordering supplies, not just for the twins but for the firefighters in her team who worked so hard, literally putting their life on the line at her command, every call. They did that because they were family.

“Every now and then we get involved in babies being born, though usually it’s just making sure we get you to hospital in time. And that’s pretty special for us, knowing we’re helping someone start their life well, but sometimes, like for Luca and your Carina…” She smirked when she saw the expressions shift on the adult siblings at her qualification, “...sorry, this one’s…” She wrapped her arm around the adult Carina’s shoulders as, once Naomi was comfortable holding her son, the doctor had drifted back to stand with the others, naturally gravitating to be stood by Maya. “...Carina to me, I’m not used to their being two.”

“Si, it is not a common name here in America,” said Carina, leaning into Maya for a second then stepping back, allowing Maya the space to be able to hold the bear in front of her.

“Being born in the Station makes your son and daughter part of our family at Station 19 Naomi, and as the Captain, I’d like to give Luca and Carina their caps, along with an open invitation for them, and you, to visit us whenever you’re in town.” Moving a bit stiffly, Maya put the bear on the table over the foot of Naomi’s bed, then picked up her hat. “Er, we stick the caps on bears so you have somewhere to keep the cap or something for the baby until they’re big enough for the cap,” she finished awkwardly, stepping back. “Probie?” she muttered, indicating Emmett should put the other one next to it.

“Wow…” Naomi looked at the two bears, each larger than the baby whose cap they were wearing, tears forming in her eyes. “...I don’t know what to say...wait...you!” She turned her head and fixed what Maya and Carina both immediately recognised as a classic ‘big sister’s word is law’ glare on Sam. “You are not to ever wear or touch those caps, I know what you’re like…”

“Wouldn’t dream of it Nome,” said Sam seriously, for once not objecting to her still treating him like he was four. “That’s really awesome, thank you...” 

“Yes, thank you…Captain? Would you like to hold him?” Her offer served a dual purpose - yes, she wanted the Captain to have the opportunity to hold the baby named after her, but it also meant her hands were free to look at the bear he’d just been given a little more closely.

“I…” Maya felt sweat forming on her back. “...sure.” She went to put her hat automatically under her arm, only for Carina to pluck it from her fingers and pass it to Emmett, knowing that Maya wouldn’t be able to keep her elbow still. “Hello Luca…” she said formally, standing stiffly holding him in her tense arms, braced against her front. “...you know my Boss was visiting as you arrived into the world.” She had started talking through nerves, but when she felt Carina’s presence just behind her, one hand on her hip and one on her forearm, she managed to relax a little, realising that what her girlfriend had taught her a couple of days ago with the puppies worked now too. “His name is Battalion Chief Sato, and he drove the special truck to the Station so my Carina could deliver your Carina and make sure your sister and Mom were healthy. I had just wished him Happy Christmas when your Mom made the most amazingly loud noise, and then we heard you. From outside the Station. And my boss said that sounded like 19’s latest Probie’s just started shift...but you don’t have to be a firefighter. You can do anything you want to.”

Unbeknownst to Maya, Andy had, at Naomi’s quiet request, taken some pictures on her phone for them.

“Emmett?”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to hold her?”

“Umm…” It was hard to know who looked more terrified, Emmett or Maya, but Carina, hearing the question, prepared to go and pick up little Carina for Naomi (Maya was right, having two Carinas was strange, nice but strange). “...thank you.”

“Where are you going?” asked Maya, feeling Carina moving away from her.

“To get little Luca’s sister for Emmett.”

“Yes, but…” The stiffness had returned to Maya’s body. “...would you put him back please?”

“Si bella…” There was a time when Carina might have not given in so easily, might have persuaded Maya to trust herself and hold him completely on her own for a minute longer, but this wasn’t that time, or place. So she gently extracted Luca from her girlfriend’s careful grasp and put him back in his little crib. Then she picked up his sister, and waited for Emmett too come closer.

“Can I have a picture of you both with him please?” asked Naomi shyly, glad that Andy had offered to take the pictures of her son being held by her childhood hero, knowing she’d have never had the courage to ask.

“Sure…” said Carina. “...do you have a cell phone?”

“No…” At Naomi’s crestfallen face, Andy remembered the scene update she’d had, and put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Have you got email?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take them with my phone and can email you?” offered Andy, looking around the room, wondering if they’d got any things. “Have you got your stuff here?” She knew that Jack had checked their car when they’d found it, but only found a few half eaten packets of gum and sweets, no hospital bag or other possessions.

“No…” Naomi looked at her brother, who was fast asleep again, his injuries and unexpectedly found heart condition taking its toll on him. “...I was so certain it wasn’t time…”

“Naomi?” asked Emmett quietly, scared to wake the little bundle of sleeping life in his hands. “Would you like me to go and get you some things from your house after my shift? I’m sure I ask the Lieutenant or another of the female firefighters to supervise me so I don’t bring the wrong things for you…” He had no idea what she might need or want, especially after childbirth, but thought Andy or Vic might have an idea. “...and stuff for Sam too?”

“Please...the keys are in my coat…” She yawned, everything starting to become a bit much again and she was fighting sleep. 

“I can give them the keys and address for you,” said Carina quietly, extracting the still sleeping baby Carina from Emmett’s arms and putting her back in her crib, Andy having taken the picture of Emmett holding the baby with Carina stood next to him. “...if you would like me to Naomi?”

“Thank you…” Naomi tried to move into a slightly more comfortable position, holding Luca’s bear against her, wincing as she instead was caught out by her incision, prompting Carina to shoot the firefighters a rather pointed look as she reached for the curtain that separated Naomi’s bed from Sam’s.

“That’s our cue I think,” whispered Andy, nodding towards the door, pushing Maya and Emmett out of the room.

* * *

  
  


“I don’t mind coming with you Emmett,” said Andy, no longer whispering once they were stood outside in the ward corridor again.

“Thanks Lieutenant.” He started to try and squash the now empty kit bag into something a little more neat and easy to carry, almost dropping his hat in the process.

“Shit, I left my hat in there…” sighed Maya, realising why she’d felt like she was missing something, looking through the window into the room and seeing it sitting on the table next to the bears.

“Carina will bring it out I’m sure,” said Andy calmly, knowing that if the doctor didn’t spot it, she’d go and get it for her girlfriend.

“Yeah...you want to go get them their things now?”

“But I thought…” Emmett had been sincere in his presumption that he’d do the errand on his own time.

“Take the SUV, you’ve got your phones and radios, saves them having to wait until tomorrow.”

“What about you?” asked Andy, grateful to her friend for bending the rules a little for them, but like Emmett, perfectly happy to do it after shift rather than on the department’s time.

“We’ve got the kit bag, so I’ll stay here with my kit. You can pick me up when you drop off their stuff.” So far, she knew from the quick check she’d done on her phone, they hadn’t had any calls yet, and across Seattle the Department was having a fairly quiet time of it. She was too experienced to articulate this outloud for fear of tempting fate, but her gut was telling her that they’d get lucky. And if they did get a call, she would have her kit with her and could make here way directly to the scene from the hospital, just as Andy and Probie would.

“You don’t want us to drop you off at the Station?” asked Andy, already knowing the answer, not begrudging her friend for wanting to try and have a moment to herself to process being recognised as an athlete, something which Andy had genuinely never seen happen before. An added bonus would be if Carina had a spare few minutes too.

“Quicker if you don’t I think,” said Maya, sticking her phone and her hands in her pockets. 

“Alright, come on Probie…” said Andy, after giving her best friend another thoughtful look, hoping Carina did have a few minutes, not liking how quiet Maya was going. “...I’ll pack up your kit for you, you catch us up when you get your hat back?”

“Thanks.”

  
  


“Here…” Carina shut the door quietly behind her and held Maya’s hat out to her. “...I thought you needed this.”

“Thanks, are they ok?”

“Si, I am going to change her dressing and need to give her some different pain medication - the car accident injuries are aching.”

“She did really well holding him with her arm in a cast.”

“A mama’s love is a powerful pain medication, but it is not as long lasting as some of the drugs I can prescribe,” said Carina simply, opening the cabinet Maya was stood next to and gathering up what she needed. As much she wanted to stay with Maya, she had patients to treat, so once she had everything she needed, she smiled at her girlfriend and went back into the room.

It was only after the door closed behind her that Maya realised their plan was currently missing two crucial elements: the address for where Naomi and Sam lived, and some keys so they could get in.

Oh well, she’d just wait until Carina came out again, plus it gave her time to recover from the surprise of being recognised.


	4. After the Epilogue - Maya's shift has run its full 24 hours, Carina's shorter shift finished, she had some time away from the hospital and is now on her next shift.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maya reflecting on being a bit famous, sharing some memories of the Olympics. Also a bit of brother-sister dynamics and being 'not straight' in the almost public eye.
> 
> [The pins bit is real by the way, if you've never been to an Olympics, it's a very bizarre sub-culture that makes fandom look....perfectly ordinary].

Too awake to sleep, Maya went into the third bedroom of the apartment, the room Vic had occasionally slept in after a girls night, even if Andy wasn’t staying over. Carina, realised Maya, as she turned the light on in the least used bedroom, wasn’t the only person who thought of the other guest room as ‘Andy’s room’ still. Going over to the bed, Maya knelt down and pulled out the wheeled boxes that were under the bed, then turned around and sat down on the floor between them, her back propped up against the side of the bed.

She’d not looked at these boxes in years, not since she packed them up and pushed them under the bed after she’d moved in. She’d not been lying, all those years ago on the first day of the Academy, when Andy had called her ‘the Olympian’ and Maya had dismissed the label, saying something like ‘that was who I was, this is who I am’. She was a  _ former  _ Olympian, and while she had quite a lot of the kit she’d collected over the years still in her wardrobe, once to wear for running and training in, now mostly claimed by Carina for sleeping and wearing around their home in, this was where the memories really were. 

Reaching out to the one on her left, she popped open the clips holding the lid on, lifting the plastic cover away and...why was she surprised that it was exactly like she’d packed it? Untouched in seven, eight years, just sitting there. She’d packed it all up, keeping out only her medal and her race number, which she’d had pinned up in her bedroom while she was at the Academy, then when she got to 19, she’d put them in her locker, until Gibson had shown an unhealthy obsession with it. The race number was still folded in the back of the box her medal was in, now in her office. Not because she actually wanted to see it anymore, not now she couldn’t see it without seeing the abuse her father wielded over her, Mason and her mother, but because she’d come to understand others expected to see it.

But this...she lifted out a plastic file, flicking through it and immediately putting it aside, like it was burning her skin, not wanting to see her father’s handwriting on her training plans. That wasn’t what she was looking for, nor really did she want to see her race kit, now able to question why they’d had to basically run in a bikini when then they just accepted it. She put that packet to the side, thinking Carina might be amused to see it...and might then understand why Maya had absolutely refused to wear a bikini when they were on holiday. “Hello old friend…” she whispered, picking up her race shoes, so different to the sneakers people wore, herself included now, went running or jogging in. She was conscious of the faint throb of her ankle, still angry with her after her run in her turnout boots on Christmas Day, her toes flexing in her socks at the memory of what it felt like when spikes bit into rubber and it was like her feet had wings. 

She turned them over, smiling when she saw the groove etched in the central spine of the shoe’s sole, that connected the spiked toe section with the tiny heel...her father had been so mocking, but the sponsors insisted it was an important ritual for their archives, and since, as she now knew, the sponsors were paying for her father’s other pride and joy, his SUV, he’d shut up. The flowing M and B, there in the sole of her spikes, proof that they were the moulds for her, her spikes for her running...the same M and B as she’d scattered through the shift reports just over an hour or so earlier. Putting the spikes down, in the same pile as her race strip, she picked up the next file….ah, yeah, this was what she was looking for....

* * *

  
  


“Maya?”

“Hi Teddy.” Maya stepped to the side of the corridor to let a patient in a wheelchair past.

“You look…”

“More comfortable?” joked Maya, gesturing to her jeans and outdoor jacket, though she had grabbed her SFD beanie when she’d seen the snow had started again as she left.

“Less starched,” agreed Teddy, who’d actually thought the fire captain looked less like she was going to throw up from nerves than the last time she’d seen her, just as she was leaving Naomi and Sam to go to OR 2. There was nothing wrong with a bit of diplomacy and the occasional easy way out. “You looking for Carina?”

“Actually I thought I’d go say hi to Naomi Climpson if that was ok? I mean…”

“Sure, I was just on my way to check on her brother.”

“Everything ok? Sorry, I didn’t mean…” Maya pressed the call button for the elevator, happy to skip the stairs for once.

“It’s a routine house call Maya, I just missed him on my rounds because he’s not with my other patients.”

“Ah, cool.” Maya waited for the elevator to empty before getting in, surprised to discover she and Teddy had the car to themselves. “I thought I’d, um, well, that maybe Naomi would like Luca to know who I used to be.”

“You never get recognised?”

“No...not really. There was some stuff locally sometimes, when the SFD press office wants something to brag about.” She waited while Teddy pressed the fourth floor button. “Like when I made the national firefighter games team as a cadet, that meant ‘SFD Olympic Champion Cadet Bishop’ type stuff in the paper for a day or so….” She held the door open for Teddy to exit the lift first. “...I used to think they were going to tell me to wear my medal with my dress uniform sometimes…” She shrugged as she signed the ward visitors book. “But otherwise not really.” She tore out the paper slip and put it in her pocket, then continued walking along the corridor with Teddy. “It’s not like I was Michael Phelps.”

“No, but…” Teddy paused at the door, seeing Carina was in with Naomi. “...Carina’s here.”

“Oh, I’ll wait.” Maya nodded towards the chairs on the other side of the hall. “And it was just a random thought, stupid probably, so I can just say hi to Carina and go home.”

“Stay,” said Teddy, suddenly determined that not only should Maya get a chance to follow through with her lovely idea, but that hopefully Naomi would be ok with Teddy and Carina at least staying to see it too.

* * *

  
  


“Carina?”

“Si? Oh, Teddy…” Carina had just finished checking Naomi’s incision, pleased that she was managing to not move about so much now she was in a lighter arm splint, and was stood beyond the foot of the bed making notes in her chart.

“Maya’s here.”

“Oh? But…” Carina looked up at the clock, trying to work out what that meant in terms of her girlfriend’s shift pattern.

“She’s come to see Naomi...think she’s brought some ‘Olympic Maya’ stuff for her and Luca.”

“Oh…” Carina looked at Naomi with a critical eye, forcing herself to be a doctor first and assess whether her patient was physically strong enough for a visitor, nevermind a visitor that Carina now knew wasn’t just her hero as a teenager, but had been her first infatuazione.

“Did you know about any of that?”

“Any of what?”

“The Olympics…sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“No, it is ok. I...know some about the running…” and her father, thought Carina to herself, “...but had never thought about how she is...famoso, come una celebrità.” She put Naomi’s chart back in the holder on the end of the bed. “You are here to see Sam?”

“Morning rounds, decided not to bring the whole circus....but no need to make Maya wait for us.”

“Si, grazie.” Carina stepped up to Naomi’s bed again. “Naomi?”

“Yes?”

“Maya is here, I think she has something for Luca…”

“Oh, but the cap and the bear…”

“Sshh, tranquilla…” If she wasn’t trying to make sure that Naomi could heal quickly, Carina would have been amused by how flustered she seemed to get every time Maya was mentioned. “...I think this is from her running career. Would you like to see her?”

Naomi nodded, remembering quite clearly what happened when she wasn’t ‘tranquilla’ as Dr DeLuca put it. “Wait, Doctor?”

“Si?”

“She doesn’t talk about this with you I bet?” Naomi remembered the surprise the Italian seemed to have when posters had come up yesterday.

“No, I did not know her then, and in Italy we don’t see much about any other country’s athletes.”

“Will you stay? You probably can’t, patients….”

“Sssh….” Carina needed all of her professional resolve to not roll her eyes at the young woman’s nervousness, hoping Teddy’s exam of her brother didn’t wear him out too much as, despite his little brotherness, he did seem to help Naomi stay a bit calmer. “...if you do not mind me staying, I would very much like to learn about the Maya you know.”

* * *

  
  


“So…” said Maya once they’d finished all the ‘hellos’ and Teddy and Carina had pushed the beds together so Sam and Naomi could pass things to each other, Luca and little Carina off in the NICU for a bit because as much as she might want to, Naomi was not yet able to do much feeding and so on with them given her incision and her injuries from the car accident part of her labour. “...what was your distance?”

“At high school I did everything up to 5k…” Maya nodded, having had a not unsimilar experience early on, but then she’d started being not just good but very good and things had become, well, what they became. “...but I was at the 2009 trials for the 3k and 2010 trials for the 1500m.”

“The Junior Nationals were held at the same time as one of the Senior squad selection training camps. I think we ran…” Maya thought back, trying to remember something other than her father’s voice yelling in her ear, which was weird because he wasn’t even there, but his voice was ingrained in her memory of running training splits. “...yeah, if you were 1500, I think we were running on a stagger with some of you acting as our pacers?” She looked at Naomi, impressed. “You were one of them?”

“Yes.” She saw Teddy, Carina and Sam looking confused. “I don’t really know how to explain it, we were under 19s, which meant we were mostly 16 or 17, and we had a training race to get used to the spikes.”

“Spikes?”

“Yeah…” Maya reached into her backpack and produced her racing spikes. “...athletic tracks are springy, you don’t need the thick soles like running shoes for roads…”

“Are these?”

“The shoes I wore to win Gold? Yeah…go ahead.” She nodded for Naomi that it was ok to pick one up, same for Carina, but to Carina and Teddy she added the extra warning. “Careful of the spikes, they’re, well, spiky.”

“The scar…” said Carina suddenly, seeing the pin pattern in the sole and it suddenly making sense. 

“Yeah.” Maya didn’t want to talk about the scar on her back, the scar Carina had presumed came from firefighting, the scar that she could see her girlfriend was now realising was perhaps something a little more sinister - she’d told Carina about the coach she’d had that, unlike her father, had hit her, hard in the small of her back with ‘running shoes’...she’d just not explained that to her, then, ‘running shoes’ meant her spikes, not what Carina thought of as the shoes she wore to go for her morning runs.

“Is that….Oh My God.” Naomi, oblivious to the moment Maya and Carina were having, had found the groove in the sole.

“What?” asked Sam, happy to play a back seat to his sister’s moment with her hero, pleased that despite the grimness of her pregnancy, both in terms of feeling ill most of the time, but also having to cope with the end of a very bad relationship, she was getting to start her life as a Mom with such wonderful people and memories.

“Look…” As Naomi passed the shoe carefully across to Sam for him to see what had caught her eye, Maya returned to her quick explanation of how Naomi must have seen her.

“The kids like Naomi...sorry, didn’t mean that.”

“Compared to you guys in the senior squads we were kids.”

“Compared to the juniors, we already knew how to run in spikes, we were doing it multiple times a day, but for some of the juniors they’d maybe never run on a track in spikes, or had run in spikes but on a track with no bounce. So they’d get a practice run chance, to do a lap or two of the track before their trials race. We’d use them to practice chasing down breakaways, that sort of thing.”

“It was really weird, like being chased down by a freight train…” giggled Naomi, taking the shoe back from Sam. “No, really...we’d be running along, trying to remember we weren’t supposed to be racing each other, getting used to the bounce and suddenly from nowhere you would fly past us.”

“I guess…” grinned Maya, “...we were supposed to be racing each other, in 2009 at least. 2010 I think it was more cautious, as we had our trials the following weekend.”

“These are your initials…” said Teddy, seeing the ‘M’ and the ‘B’ on the sole of the shoe. “...do you put your name in everything you own?” she teased, thinking back to the uniform shirt she’d seen Carina wearing.

“They’re more than initials Dr Altman,” said Naomi, amazed that these brilliant doctors didn’t know how incredible their friend was.

“Let me see?” asked Carina, touching Teddy’s forearm lightly. “Si, that is Maya’s handwriting, it is on her reports always.”

“A thing the sponsors did, when they made you your shoes...most of us, unless you’re like Usain Bolt, we ended up with our spikes in whatever colour the team management have picked, or the sponsors have agreed with the team and the IOC. But you got to write your initials into the moulds somewhere, I went for the sole.”

“These are custom made?” asked Teddy, now getting the significance, having heard Amelia complaining about Link being especially boring about the custom boot fittings when he was at the Seattle Mariners. “That’s a big deal…”

“It was like a decade ago…” dismissed Maya, taking the shoes back and putting them back in the bag she’d put them in to avoid the spikes making a mess of what else she’d brought. “...umm, so earlier, I mean yesterday…” That was the problem with 24 hour shifts, it meant what was ‘yesterday’ for most people was just ‘earlier’ for Maya, which could end up making conversations very confusing. “...Sam said you had my poster.”

“Yeah…” Naomi blushed, being reminded now that as well as her ‘hero’, Maya was also her ‘crush’.

“Can you remember which one?”

“She had like four…” said Sam, rather forgetting he was trying to not be an annoying little brother but a grown up ‘uncle’ now. “...before the Olympics.”

“Ah.”

“Shut up Sam.”

“But…”

“Is Sam your little brother?” asked Maya, unlike Carina and Teddy, not having any idea about his date of birth.

Another nod, followed by shrug. “Not so little anymore…”

“Mine too,” said Carina, starting to think she understood a little of what was maybe happening, what had happened, remembering that Sam was quite a bit taller than Naomi. “But he’s always going to be younger so no matter how tall he gets, I will call him my little brother.”

“Mine too,” agreed Maya, smirking. “Though that’s been true for me since I was eleven,” prompting everyone to smile as Maya made fun of her own relative lack of height. “He got bored of teasing me about being taller than me by the time he was about 12 though...and when he was 14 he worked out he could tease me because he worked out I liked girls and was just pretending whenever the topic of boys came up, because that was what I thought I was supposed to say.” Maya looked at Sam, unconsciously using the same look she used when the team decided to try and misbehave and skip chores. “It worked at school but not with my little brother, who’d then be a bit of a brat...sound familiar?”

He nodded, and made to try and get out of his hospital bed, wanting to be close to his sister, but Dr Altman’s look kept him in place, though Teddy did relent and helped him move across the bed and prop it up a bit higher so he could reach out more easily and hold his sister’s hand.

“If I had to guess, you probably mentioned my name once too often for him to ignore when you got back from Trials?” At Naomi’s nod, Maya turned to look at her brother. “Was it just teasing or did you bet?” she guessed, knowing the rumours at the time, knowing how she didn’t care then and, with Carina in her life now, she didn’t care now either, but for different reasons. “My brother made bets with the other kids at school.” It was how he got the money for the drugs, but she wasn’t going to think about that now, now she was going to try and stay with the happier memories.

“Fifty bucks, after you won the medal, that you’d be on some guy’s instagram at the Closing Ceremony,” admitted Sam, embarrassed at how childish it now sounded, though in his defence, he’d been a hormonal teenager who rather fancied her too. “I didn’t really believe it, but I was a brat and it was a way to get on Nome’s nerves.”

“What…” Carina looked between Maya and the siblings, confused and surprised.

“There were rumours, always, about who wasn’t straight...whispers on the circuit. None of it mattered as long as you weren’t famous famous, rather than athletics nerd famous…” joked Maya. “And to be clear, I was barely athletics nerd famous.”

“Bella…”

“No, really. I wasn’t tall enough or interesting enough to be anything other than famous for my results, and 10k wasn’t a sexy event, not like the sprinters or the swimmers...and I didn’t do the athletics circuit races, so didn’t get the times and the results to make me athletics nerd famous. Which was a good thing because…” She shuddered, leaning in to Naomi like she was telling her a secret. “I hate having my photo taken so much Carina only gets pictures she likes of me if our friends take them when I’m distracted.”

“No…” Naomi couldn’t believe that - she was an Olympian and a Fire Captain, what was scary about pictures?

“Si. I have two sorts of pictures of Maya, ones with me in and ones where she is at a fire, but the fire ones are usually an Angry Maya because it is a press photographer who is being stupido and dangerous.”

“Don’t feel bad Sam, it was...what happened then, and now I guess, probably worse actually. I hated having my photo taken so much that I...became infamous I suppose, which meant the rumours became more interesting about me.” She shrugged. “And I guess there was still that part of me trying too hard to pretend I liked boys...anyway...don’t let him tease you anymore Naomi…” Realising how much she was talking, Maya became a bit flustered and started to talk quickly. 

“And I’m flattered, embarrassed but then I’m embarrassed every time Carina tells me I look nice or something like that….and you can tell little Luca when he’s old enough whatever you want to tell him about me, but I thought…” She opened her backpack again and pulled out a stack of papers and a scarf. “...we didn’t just get our race kit, but a whole wardrobe...we were given these scarves with all these pins on them. It’s a weird Olympic thing, everyone has them, the teams do them, sponsors, games organisers, and people collect and swap them. That’s my set, all the team ones, sponsors, all of them. I didn’t really get the whole swap thing so I don’t have any interesting ones from other countries, but…I’d like you and Luca to have it….and yes Teddy, the scarf does have my name on it.” 

“I, we…” Naomi was crying at the gesture, looking at the scarf Maya had put on the bed in front of her with the same reverence she’d shown to the spikes and, realised Teddy, her son...which actually made rather a lot of sense to the surgeon, who was now wondering what her reaction would have been if she’d met her teenaged hero when she’d been with Alison...nope, she wasn’t thinking that here, not right now, not without alcohol.

“Also, and you can say no if this is creepy, but I hope you find it more of a funny thing…” Maya opened the file and spread the contents out on the table where earlier she’d been putting bears and her uniform hat. “...I got copies of all the posters and photos, again, never knew what I was supposed to do with them, but now you know how rare a picture of me is…” She tried to make a joke out of it. “...do you remember which ones you had?”

“Yeah…” Naomi reached for them, only to wince as she forgot her incision, also starting to struggle with all the excitement, to stay awake, something Carina and Maya picked up on.

“There’s no rush to look…” said Maya quickly, looking at Carina and seeing her smile and nod. “...I’ll leave it all with Carina for when you’re less sleepy?”

“I’m not…” She gave herself away with a yawn, a yawn that Sam quickly found was infectious.

“Yes you are,” said Carina firmly, putting the photos and folded posters back in the file. “I want you to rest please, so I will take these to my office and bring them back for you this afternoon? That way they will be safe…”

“Thank you…” Naomi was, now her tiredness was called out, really struggling. “...both of you.”

“Get some rest…” said Maya, fastening her backpack. “We had calls all shift but Andy and Emmett have your things, they’re going to come by this afternoon if that’s alright?”

“Thanks Captain,” said Sam, finding it was easier to not think about her as his sister’s teenage crush, as that reminded him what a brat of a teenager he’d been.

“Nothing to thank me for, it was all them.” Maya shouldered her backpack and awkwardly patted Naomi’s shin through the blankets. “I know I’m biased, but listen to your doctor Naomi, she’s the absolute best...and Dr Altman’s awesome too.”

“Thank you Captain…” Maya was going to correct Naomi, to tell her she should call her Maya, but she saw she was already fast asleep, lying at what looked like an awkward angle, so she decided to leave before Carina got cross with her for jeopardising her patient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It ends a bit abruptly, because it's a rework of a big chunk of a scene I didn't use but thought you might like to read. Imagine Carina having a fine old time in her office now, with Teddy and Maya, looking at all the photos and posters Maya had to endure... ;-)


End file.
